This is a biased review in the sense that this book appears to have been written specifically for me. Seriously. Look at the title page under a microscope, and you’ll find, “Written specifically for CarrieS” in tiny aquamarine-colored cursive metallic type.
A Week to be Wicked is one of Tessa Dare’s “Spindle Cove” books. In this Regency romance, Minerva needs a favor – she needs Colin Sandhurst, AKA Lord Payne, to fake an elopement with her. Colin, AKA the improbably named Lord Payne, lives in a castle. Not a manor – a castle. He opens his own door, shirtless, as one does, when Minerva knocks on it in the middle of the night, during a rainstorm. So we are off and running in the wacky Regency madness races.
Now that you’ve had a chance to give the name “Lord Payne” the attention it deserves, let’s move on to the reason this book was written for yours truly: Minerva.
I give you the following:
Of the three Highwood sisters, she was the only dark-haired one, the only bespectacled one, the only one who preferred sturdy lace-up boots to silk slippers, and the only one who cared one whit about the difference between sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.
The only one with no prospects, no reputation to protect.
Diana and Charlotte will do well for themselves, but Minerva? Plain, bookish, awkward with gentlemen. In a word, hopeless.
The words of her own mother, in a recent letter to her cousin. To make it worse, Minerva hadn’t discovered this description by snooping through private correspondence. Oh, no. She’d transcribed the words herself, penning them at Mama’s dictation.
WELL. That shit is MADE FOR ME. I hasten to state emphatically that my own mother is very supportive and affectionate, and I suppose I should add that I have only a passing interest in science as opposed to a burning obsession (my academic burning obsession is literature). But if Minerva happened to be short (which I think she is) and ever so slightly overweight (which she is not) then we might as well just stick a picture of me on the cover and call it a day. Minerva reads while she walks and she lies in a meadow with a hot guy and makes remarks about the chemical composition of the soil. I adore her.
So, Minerva’s deal is this. She has to get from Spindle Cove to Edinburgh, Scotland, in less than two weeks. I don’t know where the fictional town of Spindle Cove is, exactly, but it’s a seaside resort in England that is not conveniently close to Edinburgh. Minerva needs Colin to get her to Edinburgh so she can take part in a geology symposium. She’s going to present a plaster cast she’s taken of a dinosaur footprint and win the prize of five hundred guineas for Best Presentation. She will give the entire prize to Colin if he will get her there in time. Cue road trip hijinks.
This book isn’t flawless. Colin has great reasons for angst (so much PTSD!) but his whole “I break every thing I touch and no one thinks I’m worthy and they are right” shtick got old fast. Minerva can be alarmingly callous. They are both totally confused about sexual boundaries although everything remains consensual. I just wanted them to run off to Scotland, have sex, and win all the prizes, already, the heck with pages and pages of “will they be together or not” angst. I realize that the Spindle Cove books are supposed to be interconnected, but the subplot with Kate and Corporal Thorne was an unwelcome distraction and messed up the pacing. The end is messy, although I think that’s sort of the point (and it’s also unequivocally happy).
But the book is sweet and touching and so funny. Did I mention that Colin and Minerva play a game in which they compete to come up with the most sexy math word? It had never occurred to me that the word “rhombus” has such a ring to it. Minerva and Colin make a great team – the book has a similar vibe to screwball comedies like It Happened One Night but with more of a sense of respect between the two lead characters. Colin and Minerva name the fossil (“Francine”) and pack it in a trunk wrapped in Minerva’s trousseau (she figures she’s ruined so she doesn’t need a trousseau anyway and it makes great packing material). They drag that trunk all over the United Kingdom, whispering torrid math words in each other’s ears and conning everyone they meet, and it’s just too much fun.
I can’t judge this book fairly on literary merits because they had me at “geological symposium.” What with the fossil named Francine and the story about them being siblings in the Congo (or someplace – it’s all a blur – you’ll have to read it yourself) and the nature of loam and the naughty math words I was a goner.
It’s even dedicated to me. Just look:
For all the girls who walk and read at the same time.
If you are also a person who perks up at the sound of the word “Tesselation” or who longs to travel through Britain with a viscount and a dinosaur foot, then check this book out right away. It may be made for me, but it’s not meant for ONLY me, and us girls who walk and read at the same time have got to stick together.
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A Week to be Wicked is fantastic! It’s my favourite in the Spindle Cove series (I’ve read four of them). I devoured it in a couple of days, reading it so fast that I actually skipped some passages in my haste to go on. Minerva and Colin are magnificent, Minerva’s mother is maybe my favourite secondary character in the series, and Kate and Thorne are better here than in their own book. Highly recommended.
I do believe that if there were the two people AND a dinosaur foot cast on the cover I would buy it no questions asked. Just, walking around in a bookstore, minding my own business, BAM oh hello book HUWAT DINOSAURS AND HOTNESS I AM IN.
And now I want to read it! Thanks for the awesome review. I’ve read this book was great but lacked something to push me over the edge. I think Sexy Math Words did it.
Hah. I walk and read at the same time, so ergo, I must read this book.
Tangentially, this reminds me of an Amanda Quick – didn’t she write one with a heroine who studied either rocks or dinosaur bones or both?
@Cleo
Yes, Ravished by Amanda Quick (I haven’t read it, but I know that the heroine is a fossil hunter.)
I love this book too. I should reread soon…
(Regency + (tortured hero * geek heroine)^2) * road trip hijinx) + FRANCINE + love this review = I must read this book. QED.
Wow, this sounds so good! I have to have it.
Loved this book!
Unfortunately this book is no longer available on Scribd. BooHoo. They’ve been taking a lot of romances off the site lately so I’m quickly reading some of the ones I’d saved before they disappear.
That was my first Tessa Dare, and far from my last. I went from “hmmm, this looks kind of okay” to “LET ME LOVE YOU” pretty quickly. Case in point, I just finished When A Scot Ties the Knot.
I think this was my favorite of the Spindle Cove series, too. It was just such a delicious book! Fantastic review, Carrie S!
The Kate/Thorne thread was a bit distracting, but it was distracting to me in the opposite sense — I was like, THIS BOOK IS GOING TO BE MY CRACK I WANT TO READ *THAT* ONE NOWWWWW. And I was right. I loved A Week To Be Wicked, but A Lady By Midnight ended up being my favorite Spindle Cove book of all.
Hm, book sounds good, click through to Amazon, seems I already own it! *slaps head*
Love this series and especially this one. The sexy math words and named fossils did it for me, too. Waiting on When a Scottish Ties the Knot and thinking it’s time for a complete reread.
Tessa Dare’s next book will be a return to spindle cove. I believe it is about the youngest sister.
Yeah, it was a bit like It Happened One Night. Although actually Bringing Up Baby was the screwball comedy with the dinosaur bone, and a role reversal because the hero was the fossil geek. I love this book. Comedy is so hard to do, but Tessa Dare’s writing is hilarious.
This one and “Goddess of the Hunt” are probably my two favorite Tessa Dare books. Of the “If there’s a fire-and-brimstone apocalypse, these are the books I’ll remake from memory” type of favorite.
Seriously, the embroidered trilobite and Minerva’s explanation.
I had the same problem with the subplot. It didn’t flow very well. But, when I read the Spindle Cove book where Minerva and Payne were the sequelbait (Night to Surrender), I was all, “okay, this book is good but *their* book is going to be my absolute favorite thing in the history of things.” And it pretty much was. I already want to reread it.
I adored this book!
My favorite in the series!
I’m usually reading books for my library (elementary school) and find great escape with Road Trip romances. I love the idea of a bespectacled science loving heroine taking charge of her life and fulfilling her dreams.
*happy sigh*
Definitely my favorite Tessa Dare book. I snapped this up while it was on sale a few weeks ago.
The hijinks are particularly marvelous (to my mind) in this one —
Only just realizing the reason it proved to be such super catnip for me — it’s a great mashup I’m going to dub A Roadtrip of Convenience. (“It Happened One Night” is another great example.) I never stood a chance! 🙂
This book was my introduction to Tessa Dare, and still my favorite Spindle Cove book! Love, love, ALLLLL the love! I’m always here for a nerdy heroine!
This was my first Tessa Dare book and my favorite of the Spindle Cove series. I love this book and bought it a few weeks ago when it was on sale. I cannot wait for Charlotte’s book. I liked when Kate found the list of all the M names.
This is my favorite Tessa Dare book (I’ve read them all, except the latest one, which Amazon told me to expect last Tuesday but has been sucked into the vortex of the Kenosha post office). A Week to Be Wicked is on my keeper shelf, so I can periodically re-read it. Not only is Minerva a nerd after my own heart, Colin is my absolute favorite kind of rake (the type who actually likes and respects women).
A Week to Be Wicked is my absolute favourite Tessa Dare to date, and one of the first I was lucky enough to read. I’m also very fond of Any Duchess Will Do (Griff’s mother and her knitting – it slays me!) and her novella The Scandalous, Dissolute, No-Good Mr. Wright.
I very much enjoyed When a Scot Ties the Knot too, especially since I refuse to believe Logan, the hero, is not modelled on Sam Heughan in Outlander. My favourite of the Castle Ever After books is still probably Romancing the Duke.
Loved this book and reread many times. I loved both Colin and Minerva and I found them to be one of the best suited fictional couples in the genre. It was funny and romantic and the plot kept up furthering their relationship. The best!
Add me to the list of folks who love this book — one of my all time favorites. Thank you for sharing the love!
I generally like Tessa Dare although sometimes she can be a little off for me. This book however, is one of my all time favorites ever. It’s sweet and hilarious, there are so many laugh out loud moments that I often reread this when I need a pick me up.
Carrie S. – thank you so much for bringing Min & Colin back into the light where they belong. So glad you fell in love with them, too. I’m getting all verklempt now that the comments to this post have died down. I knew there must be other devotees out there in Bitchlandia, and I was right.
Smart women and the smart men who love them… writers, take note.
So, is there any way we can collectively keep the flame of Min & Colin flaring in perpetuity?
I truly, truly loved this book, and if for no other reason that it turned me on to Tessa Dare. I have since gone on a Tessa Dare book binge and have read every thing of her’s that I can get my hands on. I adore Minerva, that way ahead of her time, funny,fearless, nerdy girl, and Colin, the dashing Lord who hides a world of pain behind flippant remarks, and debauchery. I like how they bring out the hidden depths in each other and love they are both willing to sacrifice what they want most to make the other happy. Plus all the hijinx that ensue along their Regency road trip from Spindle Cove to Edinburgh are hilarious. A+ and 5 stars in my book.